I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.
Interpretation
Music is an essential part of who I am, as vital as life itself.
In this quote, Ray Charles emphasizes the integral role that music plays in his existence, comparing it to essential organs and life-sustaining elements like food and water. He suggests that music is not just an activity or passion for him, but an innate part of his identity that he cannot live without.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of music education in schools.
I suppose I've always done my share of crying, especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I cry.
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.
Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes.
Any artist, when he goes in to record, should have the feeling that any song he records can be a hit. This may sound egotistical, but it makes sense.
When I started to sing like myself - as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while - when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it.
The theatre is supremely fitted to say: 'Behold! These things are.' Yet most dramatists employ it to say: 'This moral truth can be learned from beholding this action.'
Don't be too precious about your craft... there's only 26 letters and 12 notes, and Shakespeare and Beethoven said it all better than any of us ever will
Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot.
The smile that flickers on a baby’s lips when he sleeps- does anyone know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning.
Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.
I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space, whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.
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